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The book on "A Grower's Guide to Cultivating Chinese Water Chestnut in Australia" provides the technical and practical basis for the commercial production of Chinese waterchestnut. It is divided into five chapters which cover planting material and the environment, cultivation and harvest, postharvest storage, marketing and economics of production. The chapter on planting material and the environment covers the genetics of cultivated waterchestnut and site effects on seed production and cultivation. The extensive chapter on cultivation and harvest provides details on paddy design and construction, planting material and techniques, irrigation, plant nutrition, organic mulching, light management including photointensity and photoperiod, plant protection, weed control, harvesting equipment, corm quality and soilless cultivation. The chapter on postharvest storage focuses on quality parameters including weight loss, sprouting, sweetness and preferred storage technique. While the marketing chapter provides insights into domestic and overseas market potential, the chapter on production economics provides scenarios for high-cost production and low-cost production. The latter chapter demonstrates that waterchestnut production is commercially viable under a range of input and predicted yield scenarios.

When starting up production, particular attention should be turned towards the choice of good quality planting material which is those with comparably high sugar content at planting, the appropriate balance of N:P:K fertilizer and the timing of planting. These choices have important implications for the yield and quality of waterchestnut. With the manipulation of daylength through artificially lengthening with suspended bulbs or shortening through light exclusion, it is possible to supply freshly harvested produce for at least six months per year. Cold storage at 4°C allow another extension of supply of fresh corms. In addition to the HTML version, this Grower's Guide is also available in PDF format.

Besides providing an overview of his scientific publications, the homepage includes Volker's updated Curriculum vitae which is now more compact. Besides his recent assignments as a referee for the premium international agricultural journal Scientia Horticulturae and the Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics (JARTS), it also includes his latest consultation on Supplier Quality Management.

These details are also available at Volker kleinhenz's LinkedIn profile, his homepage at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand and his Twitter account @VolkerKleinhenz.